An inside look into one of the most mythologized prisons in modern
America--the Sing Sing death house
In the annals of American criminal justice, two prisons stand out as
icons of institutionalized brutality and deprivation: Alcatraz and Sing
Sing. In the 70 odd years before 1963, when the death sentence was
declared unconstitutional in New York, Sing Sing was the site of almost
one-half of the 1,353 executions carried out in the state. More people
were executed at Sing Sing than at any other American prison, yet Sing
Sing's death house was, to a remarkable extent, one of the most closed,
secret and mythologized places in modern America.
In this remarkable book, based on recently revealed archival materials,
Scott Christianson takes us on a disturbing and poignant tour of Sing
Sing's legendary death house, and introduces us to those whose lives
Sing Sing claimed. Within the dusty files were mug shots of each newly
arrived prisoner, most still wearing the out-to-court clothes they had
on earlier that day when they learned their verdict and were sentenced
to death. It is these sometimes bewildered, sometimes defiant, faces
that fill the pages of Condemned, along with the documents of their
last months at Sing Sing.
The reader follows prisoners from their introduction to the rules of
Sing Sing, through their contact with guards and psychiatrists, their
pleas for clemency, escape attempts, resistance, and their final letters
and messages before being put to death. We meet the mother of five
accused of killing her husband, the two young Chinese men accused of a
murder during a robbery and the drifter who doesn't remember killing at
all. While the majority of inmates are everyday people, Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg were also executed here, as were the major figures in the
infamous Murder Inc., forerunner of the American mafia. Page upon page,
Condemned leaves an indelible impression of humanity and suffering.
